Long-term stability in the circumpolar foraging range of a Southern Ocean predator between the eras of whaling and rapid climate change.

ABSTRACT: Assessing environmental changes in Southern Ocean ecosystems is difficult due to its remoteness and data sparsity. Monitoring marine predators that respond rapidly to environmental variation may enable us to track anthropogenic effects on ecosystems. Yet, many long-term datasets of marine predators are incomplete because they are spatially constrained and/or track ecosystems already modified by industrial fishing and whaling in the latter half of the 20th century. Here, we assess the contemporary offshore distribution of a wide-ranging marine predator, the southern right whale (SRW, Eubalaena australis), that forages on copepods and krill from ~30°S to the Antarctic ice edge (>60°S). We analyzed carbon and nitrogen isotope values of 1,002 skin samples from six genetically distinct S

SUBMITTER: Derville S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10013836 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature